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It's worth focusing on one portion of that Examiner story on Romney that Paul pointed to earlier:

Romney was less charitable to McCain, who on Sunday told ABC News: “I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states.” McCain also said, “I believe that gay marriage should not be legal.”

Romney seized on the remarks.

“That’s his position, and in my opinion, it’s disingenuous,” he said. “Look, if somebody says they’re in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view. If someone says — like I do — that I oppose same–sex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous.”

A spokesman for McCain could not be reached for comment Monday.

Unlike McCain and Giuliani, Romney supports amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. He also wants to amend the Massachusetts Constitution, although the state legislature this month balked at putting the question of gay marriage to voters.

It makes perfect political sense for Romney to try to position himself to the right of McCain, but I have a hard time seeing how it's "disingenuous" to believe that it would be better to allow individual states to make their own laws on divisive issues rather than take the drastic step of amending the constitution to impose one set of views on the entire nation. Support for state's rights used to be a central tenet of conservatism.

What's more, in defending his decision to veto the Massachusetts contraceptive bill last year, Romney wrote in the Boston Globe:

"I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am prolife. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother. I wish the people of America agreed, and that the laws of our nation could reflect that view. But while the nation remains so divided over abortion, I believe that the states, through the democratic process, should determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate."

It seems that by his own definition, Romney was being "disingenuous" and "pretending to have it both ways" because he didn't say he supports a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.

Of course, when he ran for governor in 2002, he said:

"The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government's."

Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he truly is a born again pro-lifer, that means that he believes that abortion is murder. Despite these personal beliefs, he supports a federalist solution to abortion that in practice would keep abortion legal in most—if not all—states. So somehow, allowing gays to marry is more objectionable than killing unborn fetuses. How else to explain supporting a constitutional amendment to ban one practice and not the other?

topics:
Abortion, Constitution, Law, Conservatism